Below you’ll find the show notes for episode 49, Creative Christmas Event Ideas for Your Women’s Ministry, from the Women’s Ministry Toolbox Podcast.
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Creative Christmas Event Ideas for Your Women’s Ministry
This is part 2 in the mini-series on women’s ministry Christmas events.
If you haven’t read the post Things to Consider When Planning a Women’s Ministry Christmas Event, I encourage you to read that post first, and then come back here.
There’s a good chance your women’s ministry team does the same type of Christmas event year and after year. Maybe you host a dinner with hostesses decorating the tables, maybe you play games and eat a meal together, or maybe you do a gift or ornament exchange.
None of those are bad ideas, but perhaps it’s time to change things up a bit.
Consider these questions:
- Is your team running out of steam after restarting your women’s ministry post-covid?
- Could you reach women you haven’t in years past by doing something different?
- Could pressing pausing, even just for a year, allow your women to experience something new and fresh that would point their hearts to Christ this Christmas season?
- Does God want to do something new through your women and your team?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, I’ve got some ideas for you!
I pray as I share the following ideas with you that God will make His plans for your women clear.
4 Christmas Event Concepts
Each concept includes several specific event ideas.
1. Christmas Workshops
I love offering workshops – they are interactive and provide an opportunity for women to share their gifts and skills with others.
Christmas craft workshop ideas:
- Recruit 2-3 women to coordinate making some crafts.
- Consider offering at least two different crafts options at different price points.
- Make Christmas crafts, such as a sign or wreath for the door.
- Or make crafts that would make a great gift, such as a visual calendar with family birthdays and anniversaries. (I made one several years ago and gifted it to my Mother-in-law. She loves it and enjoys adding new birthdays and anniversaries as our families grow.)
A leader in the Women’s Ministry Toolbox Facebook group shared the idea of having women teach others how to make special Christmas candy recipes. Think of family recipes that have been passed down for generations or unique foods from other countries and cultures such as pizzelles or homemade caramels. If you’ve got the space or smaller numbers, everyone might be able to make their own batch to take home.
Your team may find it’s best to host your workshops in November rather than early December. If at all possible, strive to make them interactive and not just mini-lectures. Even if your space only allows for demos, encourage the women who are teaching to ask for volunteers to help stir ingredients and hand them supplies.
2. Serve or Bless Others
Here are several ideas for serving and blessings others:
- Make Christmas cookies and deliver them to firefighters, police officers, or nurses at your local hospital.
- Help the families in your church that are fostering children with Christmas gifts.
- Serve the single moms in your church by offering childcare one evening so they can go Christmas shopping.
- Assemble and send care packages to college students as they take their final exams or men and women serving overseas.
- Spread some Christmas cheer with the Gift of No Dishes throughout a neighborhood near your church. Here’s a link to the Gift of No Dishes. Be sure to add an invite to your church’s Christmas activities and a list of upcoming women’s ministry events to each bag.
- Imagine the impact your women could make if you took the budget for your Christmas party and used it to buy coffee for people at a local coffee shop! You could prepare postcard-sized invitations for your church’s Christmas service to hand to each drink recipient.
As you consider who to serve or bless, don’t forget to reach out to your missions pastor to find out what needs there are in your area.
3. A Christmas Celebration for Others
Your women could throw a Christmas party for other people – instead of a party for yourselves.
Think of all the groups of people that would be blessed by a Christmas party:
- Teachers or students at an under-served school
- Nurses and doctors in an emergency room
- Senior adults in a nursing home
- Women and children at a local shelter
- Even your church staff
Invite your women to sign up to take care of all the details – food, paper goods, music, decorations, gifts, and games.
Or instead of a party, decorate the yard or home of a special church member or family. Be a part of a Christmas blessing to a family facing a critical illness. Just be sure to make plans to take it down after the holidays are over.
I think you’ll find it’s more fun (and fruitful) to bless others than to pamper yourselves!
The person that oversees missions in your church may know of a specific need here too.
4. Simply Still
Simply Still Is an event idea I stumbled upon years ago on the Revive Our Hearts blog here.
Here’s a quick synopsis. Women are invited to spend one hour being still before the Lord and soaking in His Word. It’s setting aside space to be still in the midst of a busy holiday season – something every woman can benefit from.
While you can certainly tailor the event to your women, here’s a quick rundown of what the event might look like:
- A welcome and opening prayer.
- A solo to prepare the heart.
- Slow Scripture readings with time to reflect, meditate, or journal between each reading.
- Singing Silent Night corporately with a candle lighting at the end.
No décor is necessary, especially if your church is already decorated for Christmas. Add a few candles or lanterns and a program with room to write and that’s it!
Side note: If you’re looking for Christmas icebreaker games for any of your Christmas events, be sure to check out the ideas here – you’ll find almost two dozen games to choose from.
I hope those 4 Christmas event concepts got the wheels in your mind turning as you consider what God wants for your women this year.
We can easily default to doing the same things year after year rather than stopping to ask God, “how do you want us to help our women celebrate Christmas this year?”
Today’s Toolbox Task:
- Brainstorm Christmas event ideas with your team. Be sure to share some from this post!
- Prayerfully consider what God wants for your women this year.
I pray we’ll all be open to and seek God’s plan for our women’s ministry Christmas events this year.
You may want to read:
Christmas Gift of No Dishes (Free Printable)
Ultimate Christmas Game Round-Up
Things to Consider When Planning a Women’s Ministry Christmas Event
12 Days of Christmas Game
10 Things I’d Do Differently as a Women’s Ministry Leader During the Christmas Season
Fellowship Idea: Workshops!
Great Ideas! I love changing it up a bit to keep thing fresh! Simply still sounds grand. 🙂 Thanks for all your ideas/post, Cyndee!
Simply Still is one of my favorite ideas too! <3 I'd love a bit of time to be still and focus on the reason for the season in the midst of all the craziness! Thanks for your comment. 🙂
The world states “X-Mas” to leave Christ out of season; sadden to see your Christmas decoration had “X-Mas.” As Christians, we are in this world but part of it. The “X-Mas” wouldn’t fair well in our church, proclaiming Christ is the reason for the season.
Hi Josie, I’m so sorry the stock photo I grabbed for this post offended you. I hope you noticed, not once in my article did I abbreviate Christmas.
You may find it interesting to look up the history of X-mas. According to Gotquestions.org “in Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word for “Christ” is Χριστός, which begins with the Greek letter that is essentially the same letter as the English letter X. So, originally, Xmas was simply an abbreviation of Christmas.” You can read the rest of the post here: https://www.gotquestions.org/Xmas.html
Thank you for directing me to the article; upon reading it, I’m not convinced. I’ll politely agree to disagree. However, your other tips have been useful to our ladies’ ministry.
I understand what you are saying but I want to pose a thought…. God knew before the world began that people would try to take Christ out of Christmas. I like to think that in knowing this he decided that when the Greek would make up their alphabet they would use the letter X for Christ. So even though man tried to eliminate Christ our all knowing God preplanned that even in this situation they were not taking Christ out of Christmas. I use this example to share with those I see who try to put the X instead that no matter what they still have included Christ. However that being said, I also share with Christians who “know” better to not use the X because most people don’t know and will think you are careless with God’s name. Use it as an object lesson.
I am hosting an early Christmas event with the men preparing the meal for our ladies. We are going to provide the tools for them to go home to do advent with their families. Our pastor has a background of candles being centerpiece of worship so he has ask us to do this with no candles. Does anyone have any creative ideas for women to use as a tool for their family.
Brenda, I love that women can take their advent tool home to use on their own or with their families (if they have one). This would be a GREAT question to ask in the Women’s Ministry Toolbox Facebook group. Here’s the link if you’re not a member (just be sure to answer the questions so your request is approved). https://www.facebook.com/groups/womensministrytoolboxcommunity
I absolutely love the Simply Still idea for our Christmas event!!!
Thanks! I’m so glad you like it! Praying it will be a blessing to your women!